Spiffy:

Iffy:

Fighting and shooting sequences can descend into button-mashing; camera issues in every sequence.

It's fascinating to watch game developers borrow and build upon what they consider the best aspects of Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City. The Getaway, written by would-be moviemakers, ramped up the cinematic aspects waaaay too much; The Simpsons Hit & Run, written by the same staff as the TV show, ratcheted up the sharp satire for which GTA3 and VC never get enough credit.

True Crime: Streets of L.A. ramps up the combat. Not a big surprise when you realize the game's developer has three vehicular-combat games to its credit. (Vigilante 8 and Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense are arguably the best car-combat games for the PSOne; Star Wars Demolition did what it could with a ridiculous premise.)

The centerpiece of Streets of L.A. is, of course, the sequence in which you drive through the City of Angels. Luxoflux claims to have accurately modeled several hundred miles of streets and highways, and judging from my limited knowledge of La-La Land's layout, they ain't fibbing.

Human shields: every terrorist's best friend.

Luxoflux has also included some of the city's major landmarks, although True Crime doesn't even attempt the anal-retentive level of detail seen in The Getaway. If you're a denizen of Los Angeles, busing tables until your acting talent is finally recognized by those bastardly casting directors, don't expect to find your condemned studio apartment represented here.

True Crime's navigation system is robust. The in-game radar in the lower-left corner can be toggled between fixed or rotary modes; the "street sign" at the top-middle of the screen shows the name of the road you're on, and also displays the name of each cross-street as you approach it.

You can pause at any time to call up a map of the entire city, which displays your current position and your destination, if you're on a mission with one. You can't zoom in on this map, which would allow you to note the precise locations of unlockables, but it does the job.

You start the game with a "'66 Classic Car," and you can unlock three newer and faster vehicles. No matter how many times you wreck 'em, you can retrieve clones of them at any time, from any of the parking garages scattered around the city. (This resembles the game mechanic in Hit & Run where you can use a phone booth to call for any unlocked vehicle.) You can't park jacked cars in a garage, unfortunately.

It's a beautiful day for pimp-frisking, isn't it?

While True Crime casts you as a cop -- albeit a cop on the edge! -- you can jack any vehicle you see, in the name of "police business." There are no motorcycles to be found, but plenty of cars, trucks, and vans to pluck. The name of the vehicle you're jacking isn't displayed, a GTA trademark I assume is too shameless for any other developer to steal, and the vehicles themselves are fictional.